Autobiography
capacities of the individual. On religion in particular the time appears
to me to have come when it is the duty of all who, being qualified in
point of knowledge, have on mature consideration satisfied themselves
that the current opinions are not only false but hurtful, to make their
dissent known; at least, if they are among those whose station or
reputation gives their opinion a chance of being attended to. Such an
avowal would put an end, at once and for ever, to the vulgar prejudice,
that what is called, very improperly, unbelief, is connected with any
bad qualities either of mind or heart. The world would be astonished if
it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments--of those most
distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue--are
complete sceptics in religion; many of them refraining from avowal, less
from personal considerations than from a conscientious, though now in my
opinion a most mistaken, apprehension, lest by speaking out what would
tend to weaken existing beliefs, and by consequence (as they suppose)
existing restraints, they should do harm instead of good.
Of unbelievers (so called) as well as of believers, there are many
species, including almost every variety of moral type. But the best
among them, as no one who has had opportunities of really knowing them
will hesitate to affirm, are more genuinely religious, in the best
sense of the word religion, than those who exclusively arrogate to
themselves the title. The liberality of the age, or in other words the
weakening of the obstinate prejudice which makes men unable to see
what is before their eyes because it is contrary to their expectations,
has caused it be very commonly admitted that a Deist may be truly
religious: but if religion stands for any graces of character and not
for mere dogma, the assertion may equally be made of many whose belief
is far short of Deism. Though they may think the proof incomplete that
the universe is a work of design, and though they assuredly disbelieve
that it can have an Author and Governor who is _absolute_ in power as
well as perfect in goodness, they have that which constitutes the
principal worth of all religions whatever, an ideal conception of a
Perfect Being, to which they habitually refer as the guide of their
conscience; and this ideal of Good is usually far nearer to perfection
than the objective Deity of those who think themselves obliged to find
absolute goodness in the author of a world so crowded with suffering
and so deformed by injustice as ours.
My father's moral convictions, wholly dissevered from religion, were
very much of the character of those of the Greek philosophers; and
were delivered with the force and decision which characterized all
that came from him. Even at the very early age at which I read with
him the _Memorabilia_ of Xenophon, I imbibed from that work and from
his comments a deep respect for the character of Socrates; who stood
in my mind as a model of ideal excellence: and I well remember how my
father at that time impressed upon me the lesson of the "Choice of
Hercules." At a somewhat later period the lofty moral standard
exhibited in the writings of Plato operated upon me with great force.
My father's moral inculcations were at all times mainly those of the
"Socratici viri"; justice, temperance (to which he gave a very
extended application), veracity, perseverance, readiness to encounter
pain and especially labour; regard for the public good; estimation of
persons according to their merits, and of things according to their
intrinsic usefulness; a life of exertion in contradiction to one of
self-indulgent ease and sloth. These and other moralities he conveyed
in brief sentences, uttered as occasion arose, of grave exhortation,
or stern reprobation and contempt.
But though direct moral teaching does much, indirect does more; and
the effect my father produced on my character, did not depend solely
on what he said or did with that direct object, but also, and still
more, on what manner of man he was.
In his views of life he partook of the character of the Stoic, the
Epicurean, and the Cynic, not in the modern but the ancient sense of
the word. In his personal qualities the Stoic predominated. His
standard of morals was Epicurean, inasmuch as it was utilitarian,
taking as the exclusive test of right and wrong, the tendency of
actions to produce pleasure or pain. But he had (and this was the
Cynic element) scarcely any belief in pleasure; at least in his later
years, of which alone, on this point, I can speak confidently. He was
not insensible to pleasures; but he deemed very few of them worth the
price which, at least in the present state of society, must be paid
for them. The greater number of miscarriages in life he considered to
be attributable to the overvaluing of pleasures. Accordingly,
temperance, in the large sense intended by the Greek philosophers
--stopping short at the point of moderation in all indulgences--was
with him, as with them, almost the central point of educational
precept. His inculcations of this virtue fill a large place in my
childish remembrances. He thought human life a poor thing at best,
after the freshness of youth and of unsatisfied curiosity had gone by.
This was a topic on which he did not often speak, especially, it may
be supposed, in the presence of young persons: but when he did, it
was with an air of settled and profound conviction. He would sometimes
say that if life were made what it might be, by good government and
good education, it would be worth having: but he never spoke with
anything like enthusiasm even of that possibility. He never varied in
rating intellectual enjoyments above all others, even in value as
pleasures, independently of their ulterior benefits. The pleasures of
the benevolent affections he placed high in the scale; and used to
say, that he had never known a happy old man, except those who were
able to live over again in the pleasures of the young. For passionate
emotions of all sorts, and for everything which bas been said or
written in exaltation of them, he professed the greatest contempt.
He regarded them as a form of madness. "The intense" was with him a
bye-word of scornful disapprobation. He regarded as an aberration of
the moral standard of modern times, compared with that of the ancients,
the great stress laid upon feeling. Feelings, as such, he considered
to be no proper subjects of praise or blame. Right and wrong, good and
bad, he regarded as qualities solely of conduct--of acts and omissions;
there being no feeling which may not lead, and does not frequently lead,
either to good or to bad actions: conscience itself, the very desire to
act right, often leading people to act wrong. Consistently carrying
out the doctrine that the object of praise and blame should be the
discouragement of wrong conduct and the encouragement of right, he
refused to let his praise or blame be influenced by the motive of the
agent. He blamed as severely what he thought a bad action, when the
motive was a feeling of duty, as if the agents had been consciously
evil doers. He would not have accepted as a plea in mitigation for
inquisitors, that they sincerely believed burning heretics to be an
obligation of conscience. But though he did not allow honesty of purpose
to soften his disapprobation of actions, it had its full effect on his
estimation of characters. No one prized conscientiousness and rectitude
of intention more highly, or was more incapable of valuing any person
in whom he did not feel assurance of it. But he disliked people quite
as much for any other deficiency, provided he thought it equally likely
to make them act ill. He disliked, for instance, a fanatic in any bad
cause, as much as or more than one who adopted the same cause from
self-interest, because he thought him even more likely to be practically
mischievous. And thus, his aversion to many intellectual errors, or what
he regarded as such, partook, in a certain sense, of the character of a
moral feeling. All this is merely saying that he, in a degree once common,
but now very unusual, threw his feelings into his opinions; which truly
it is difficult to understand how anyone who possesses much of both, can
fail to do. None but those who do not care about opinions will confound
this with intolerance. Those who, having opinions which they hold to be
immensely important, and their contraries to be prodigiously hurtful,
have any deep regard for the general good, will necessarily dislike, as
a class and in the abstract, those who think wrong what they think right,
and right what they think wrong: though they need not therefore be, nor
was my father, insensible to good qualities in an opponent, nor governed
in their estimation of individuals by one general presumption, instead
of by the whole of their character. I grant that an earnest person,
being no more infallible than other men, is liable to dislike people
on account of opinions which do not merit dislike; but if he neither
himself does them any ill office, nor connives at its being donc by
others, he is not intolerant: and the forbearance which flows from a
conscientious sense of the importance to mankind of the equal freedom
of all opinions, is the only tolerance which is commendable, or, to the
highest moral order of minds, possible.
It will be admitted, that a man of the opinions, and the character,
above described, was likely to leave a strong moral impression on any
mind principally formed by him, and that his moral teaching was not
likely to err on the side of laxity or indulgence. The element which
was chiefly deficient in his moral relation to his children was that
of tenderness. I do not believe that this deficiency lay in his own
nature. I believe him to have had much more feeling than he habitually
showed, and much greater capacities of feeling than were ever
developed. He resembled most Englishmen in being ashamed of the signs
of feeling, and, by the absence of demonstration, starving the
feelings themselves. If we consider further that he was in the trying
position of sole teacher, and add to this that his temper was
constitutionally irritable, it is impossible not to feel true pity for
a father who did, and strove to do, so much for his children, who
would have so valued their affection, yet who must have been
constantly feeling that fear of him was drying it up at its source.
This was no longer the case later in life, and with his younger
children. They loved him tenderly: and if I cannot say so much of
myself, I was always loyally devoted to him. As regards my own
education, I hesitate to pronounce whether I was more a loser or
gainer by his severity. It was not such as to prevent me from having a
happy childhood. And I do not believe that boys can be induced to
apply themselves with vigour, and--what is so much more
difficult--perseverance, to dry and irksome studies, by the sole force
of persuasion and soft words. Much must be done, and much must be
learnt, by children, for which rigid discipline, and known liability
to punishment, are indispensable as means. It is, no doubt, a very
laudable effort, in modern teaching, to render as much as possible of
what the young are required to learn, easy and interesting to them.
But when this principle is pushed to the length of not requiring them
to learn anything _but_ what has been made easy and interesting, one
of the chief objects of education is sacrificed. I rejoice in the
decline of the old brutal and tyrannical system of teaching, which,
however, did succeed in enforcing habits of application; but the new,
as it seems to me, is training up a race of men who will be incapable
of doing anything which is disagreeable to them. I do not, then,